It is time to breathe. Yes. It’s December. Let’s let that sink in for a minute. Holiday shopping is completely stressful with families trying to out-purchase each other, and hit the Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday deals and the continued deals throughout the month. When my oldest daughter was born almost seven years ago, my husband and I decided that we were going to start making gifts at Christmas. Now that both our kids are older (three and seven) they both get to make gifts as well. Last year I shared what the handmade gifts my family has made in previously, so now I am going to share what we made this year if you are still looking for inspiration.

For the adults:

Baking Pans: We purchased glass etching compound (per directions we found on the internet) and designed glass pans for the grandparents.

Photo Magnets: There is a nifty design found at ambrosiagirl.com for a Polaroid design photo magnet. We procured photos of kids and made sets for the family.

Guinness BBQ Sauce: We seem to have really good luck with canned goods at Christmas. This recipe is so yummy! I don’t even like Guinness and I keep trying to find things to put it on.

Hand Warmers: For those parents who walk their kids to school or the bus stop on these cold and wet Northwest mornings, we made little hand warmers with rice and buckwheat that can be nuked and reused.

Photos: Photos we collect throughout the year go into a calendar that is professionally printed for the grandparents – I have found the best price and layout to be through Costco. We also purchased large school photo frames when our oldest was in preschool so grandparents could collect a picture every year.

For the kidletts:

Bowl and Cup Sets: Again, we did glass etchings of kids' initials for a couple of kids who were older and not necessarily into toys.

Fort Kits: This was the biggie this year. There are nine families who are receiving fort kits. Most fort kits I have seen go all out with rope, clamps, clips, the whole bit. We stayed simple and bought the lowest thread count flat sheets at IKEA, clothes pins from the dollar store ($1 for 36), reusable shopping bags, and a pack of flashlights to disperse between the kids. I think the neatest thing about fort kits is that they can be used for things other than making a fort.

Olli Blocks: for $5-$12 you can download girl, boy, or animal sets of pictures that can be printed and glued onto 1.5 or 2 inch craft blocks for little kids to make mix and match people. These were so cute I couldn't pass them up. Since the block sets we found have twelve blocks and the picture set covers only nine, we put the child’s initials, a sun, cloud, flower, tree, car, and other little one square designs on the remaining three blocks.

From the kids:

My daughter and I attended a couple of ornament making workshops. During these classes, my six-year-old learned how to sew beads onto felt and use a hot glue gun. She made a couple of beaded felt ornaments and several found-object ornaments to give as gifts this year.

Thanks to Natania via Pinterest, my kids and I tried out an air bake dough from Etsy New York. The kids liked using cookie cutters and paint to make gifts from both of them.